Ever since it became apparent that one must protect either his or her person, property or land from others, a multitude of alarms and alarm systems have been developed. Alarms for protection of personal property from theft, for example in such places as museums or retail stores, have generally included some sort of plunger for sensing the removal of the object. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,274,088. A problem with this type of alarm is that if a thief knows about the plunger mechanism he can easily deactivate the alarm by keeping the plunger depressed while and after removing the object.
Position sensitive switches have been used in alarms intended to protect the person. However, these alarm systems have generally been relatively complicated and expensive, as well as bulky, and thus not particularly suited for use in protecting numerous individual items of personal property.
What has been lacking in the prior art is a position-sensitive alarm system which is small, inexpensive to produce and resists disablement by a thief.